Gustavus Adolphus College

Former head track and field coach Tom Thorkelson currently serves as an assistant coach in charge of the throwing events.

Thorkelson is in his 41st year as a member of the Gustavus track & field coaching staff.

Beginning his Gustavus coaching career in 1984, Thokelson mentored the program’s first All-American in C.J. Foster to a sixth-place finish in the shot put at the NCAA Outdoor Championships.

Thorkelson developed 22 more All-Americans before being named head coach of the Gustie men’s and women’s track & field programs in 1999. Men’s indoor teams made four appearances at the NCAA Championships in Thorkelson’s 11 years as the head coach, highlighted by a fourth-place finish in 2003, while the women’s indoor teams made six appearances at the national meet.

During the outdoor season in Thorkelson’s tenure as head coach, the Gustie men made seven appearances at the NCAA Championships, while the women made nine appearances. In Thorkelson’s final season at the helm, the women took sixth place at the 2009 NCAA Outdoor Championships.

Thorkelson’s most decorated athlete, Lisa Brown, came to the program in 2006 and won the national championship in the javelin in 2006, 2008, and 2009.

Thorkelson stepped down as the head coach in 2009 and returned to his throws coach position, a position he still holds today as the second-longest tenured coach in Gustavus Athletics history. Thorkelson was inducted into the Gustavus Athletics Hall of Fame in 2021, and is one of 16 coaches to receive the honor.

After graduating from Gustavus in 1970 with a major in business administration, Thorkelson worked various sales jobs before becoming the throws coach at Le Sueur High School in 1977 for five years. He was the throws coach at Mankato State University from 1982-84 before coming to Gustavus.

Tom lives in Saint Peter with his wife Nancy ’87. He has three children, Berit, B.J., and Erik, and four grandchildren.

Hall of Fame Profile